L'inscription de la religion dans 'La Symphonie pastorale' (Gide), 'Journal d'un curé de campagne' (Bernanos), 'L'Aventure ambigue' (Kane) et 'La Flèche de Dieu' (Achebe)

摘要

In reading the stories of Bernanos, Gide, Achebe incorporated in our corpus, it emerges that religious imagery offers a composite picture. Based upon a set of representations, religion indeed varies according to the times and society. Though viewing the divine as an influential entity, religion implies beliefs and local theogonies. In fact, divinity doesn’t influence religious belonging for no much more than there is not religion without society, there isn’t society without religion: an atheist society undoubtedly would be a godless society but it wouldn’t mean a society devoid of religion or belief. It is worth noting that in these texts the mere mention of religion poses an existential problem beyond any fervor it is likely to stand for. More than a relationship between the divine and the human, it’s about the advent of man’s evolving conscience in a universe where bonds which have always created the collective unity tend to untie. In other words, religion is meant to be a set of values by which human behaviors are inspired. It is in fighting against such a prescription that some discomfort came to be among most characters in some novels. As a result, the observation both stunning and unsatisfactory provided by the image of a universe caught up in the turmoil of societal demands stems from the approach of religion. In view of fictions, it turns out that the nature of the sacred stirs and moves throughout all peoples but also fades away more than it shows off, leads astray more than it takes root. Though leaned to the landmark of faith, the human being is more and more subjugated by vertigo. This uneasiness becomes universal because religion is a collectively-lived phenomenon. In other words, the texts unveil human being’s drift in his struggling against evil. But more than a fight against the others, it’s rather a bitter struggle against oneself in order to be reborn to the first splendor. It is obvious that the universe of stories is peopled by individuals whose voices bear the echo of the divine. A perpetual cohabitation between good and evil, this is how the human condition is established and so depicted in the novels. For what may reveal the diary of a priest bearing the arrow of god and striving against demons except that it is the symphony of an ambiguous adventure, if not a perilous one.